Erin James and I went to another BTOT talk given by Dr. Lori Landay about using games to teach. We actually got to play heaps of games in class, and it was wicked fun! How come games aren’t used all the time to teach people? Why does education get progressively more banal as we age? For one game we had to find all the tacks hidden in the room. Another game we wore pirate hats and threw paper cannonballs. Another game we watched this first-person roller coaster animation, and I tried feeding into the feeling I that I was riding it for real. She explained some theory, and I’m interested in reading some of the game philosophers she mentioned.

There are so many gamers using World of Warcraft – if only we could harness that cognitive information-processing power toward some use! In the same way we put waterwheels in rushing rivers, or windmills in windy valleys! I proposed the idea of making dungeons in WoW which are isomorphic to protein folding problems. Think of all the science!

The adventure back to Medford by foot, T, and pedal, is the best. My favorite part of going home is that I get to walk through Barnes & Noble. I stared reading this math book called “Superfractals”. Woah! From what I gather superfractals are fractals of fractals (uncountably infinitely many.) They are the juxtaposition of all possible permutations of a fractal generated by a chaos game.

I’m not sure why, but I feel really awesome now that I’m working at Berklee. I had cabin fever the last few weeks. I like being outside. Especially in the winter. I’m excited to go on adventures to Boston everyday.

Plus my two favorite things to do are make games and make music. I think by the end I’ll have played so many of these games I’ll be ear-trained expert. Perfect pitch! That’s my goal.

I’ve noticed some of my best personal creativity came when I held down a job. It’s like an elastic. When I’m compelled to work for other people, my imagination incubates, and my own desire to do personal projects increases. Although some of the games I’ll be developing for PULSE will be so cool that they will feel like personal projects themselves.

Also the community is really amazing. Everyone here is literally awesome. And really nice. Maybe it’s just the fact that it’s a music community, and musicians are in touch with awesomeness. Or maybe it’s the fact that everyone at PULSE is working together to help kids. Through fun. It’s not some empty-hearted profit-driven thing like some of my other jobs. This is the real deal.